Stray Dogs
by slothpaws
Summary: A collection of short pieces about Mickey's life outside of Ian, set in the context of his friendship with Angie. It all points back to Ian at the end, though, doesn't it? Warnings for homophobic language and awkward sex.
1. Chapter 1 - Wanna Fuck?

"Yo Angie!"

"Yeah?"

"You wanna fuck?"

"Sure."

A soft laugh welcomes him into her house. "Wanna fuck?" She laughs again to herself. "One for old time's sake, eh Mickey?" As soon as the door locks behind her he grabs the 40 and polishes it off in huge gasping gulps.

"Damn. It's obvious you were eager to get away from those guys but… _shit_, what did they do?"

"The Gallaghers?" He curls his lips back and brings his eyebrows down. "They didn't do anything. Just annoying as fuck."

She starts to roll her eyes but then something clicks in place and she just takes the empty bottle from him instead. "I dunno, they seem alright."

"Nope. Annoying as fuck, trust me."

He can tally the number of people who inexplicably give a shit about him on one hand, even if that hand had been in an accident at the meat packing plant and only had two, maybe three, fingers left. Angie is one of them. She knows Mickey is gay, has known for a long time. Neither of them say it out loud, what's the point? He doesn't talk about who he is fucking, and she doesn't ask. It's nice to not be interrogated all the time. But Angie has watched him slowly get more and more tangled up in his head. It's worse every time she sees him, too, like he is so fucking burdened by whatever demon he is wrestling that even the simple joys in life - making younger kids piss their pants with one stare, slashing the tires of any cop car left unattended for more than three minutes, telling old ladies who glare at him to "suck it, grandma" - even those things seem like too much of a hassle. So when she thinks about the way he just moved around the Gallagher brothers so awkwardly, puffing out his chest and losing his natural confidence all in the same step, that's the lightbulb moment. One of them is probably the culprit. The older one has a fucking mouth on him and Mickey hates anyone who can outwit him with the last word, so it's probably the other one. The fucking _ginger_. She laughs again.

Mickey is just staring at her, and for a moment she wonders if that train of thought actually came out of her mouth. Normally he would unleash a string of what-the-fuck-are-you-looking-at-and-why-the-fuck- are-we-just-standing-here's but he just keeps on staring. He's sweaty and kind of, panting? It's really funny but she doesn't want to laugh at him for the fourth time in probably as many minutes.

"You hungry?"

"You cooking?"

"Got a box of Bagel Bites with your name on 'em." He nips her heels all the way to the kitchen, falling into a dance they'd shared countless times in the last three years.

"Pepperoni or Three Cheese?"

"You know," She turns to face him, "only the best for my favorite Southside asshole."

(Pepperoni.)

"Your _favorite_?" He clutches his chest dramatically. "I'm fucking touched."

Mickey is a goddamn stray dog, a neighborhood fixture as constant as crackhouses and burned up cars, always running loose, teeth gnashing, ready to rip some poor fucker's balls out. And you'd swear you just saw animal control pick him up last week but here he is again, barking his fucking head off. He ambles in and out of Angie's life a lot, occasionally growling but mostly just sitting quietly, allowing her to share her space and sometimes feed him. The fact that Angie doesn't hit him or babytalk to him or put a collar on him or try to fucking rub his goddamn belly, it is, well, a rare peaceful experience. So in return, he never bites her hand or shits on the carpet, and he certainly never expects her to be his fucking "forever home".

They have a nice arrangement – one his dad doesn't question. Angie hangs out with a lot of stray dogs.

* * *

"Hey… did you really... fuck Angie Szago today?"

"Yeah I fucked Angie. Everybody fucks Angie. You don't fuck Angie?"

Ian has a sour look on his face, real obnoxious. "No." The way he drags the word out gets right on Mickey's fucking nerves, like he understands why Ian is jealous and that's the fucking POINT but he doesn't have to say it like fucking Angie is the worst thing he can think of.

"Do you wanna fuck Angie? I could call her and get her down here." Mickey chews his lip, suddenly unsure where he is going with all of this.

"No."

Of course Mickey didn't fuck Angie today. He had actually only fucked her once, if you weren't counting blowjobs. But Ian didn't need to fucking know that.


	2. Chapter 2 - Friday Night

When Mickey's brother says "going to Angie's", Terry just grunts from the couch to suggest "what the fuck do I care?". Joey already has one foot out the door when Terry says "Wait. Take _him _with you and get him laid." Mickey turns from his game of Grand Theft Auto wearing a venomous sneer. If he was a little more brave, or stupid, he would have punched Terry straight in the balls. "Fucking fourteen years old and all he does is sit around the house like some faggot."

Angie's place is small, but nice enough from the outside. The paint isn't peeling and there aren't any broken windows or car parts in the yard, which was more than he can fucking say for his own house. Joey bangs his fist against the door like a real asshole, the kind of knock you use when some fucker owes you money and you know his ass is home so he better just open the goddamn door and stop wasting your time. Angie doesn't seem fazed, though. "Hey Joey. Ready to party?" What kind of fucking greeting is that? Jesus. Her t-shirt has the collar cut off so it's falling down her shoulders and her voice is weirdly child-like for a fifteen year old. Joey looks like he's going to cream his jeans right there in the doorway. Fuck. This.

Mickey considers turning and just taking off, because it's not like Joey is going to forfeit his raging hard-on to chase after him. He rocks up on the balls of his feet, ready to fucking jet when she says "Here." and tosses him a beer. By the time his eyes register her, then the can, and then look up again, she is leading Joey upstairs without another word.

He finishes that beer, and then one more, trying to drown out the sounds Joey is making from upstairs. It sounds like a fucking gorilla is giving birth and it's doing his goddamn head in. To make the experience even more excruciating, there is nothing on TV, Angie doesn't have any video games, and there is fuck all to eat in her house, not that she had invited him to make himself dinner. He flicks open his switchblade idly, again weighing the consequences of taking off. When he finally concludes that this is the stupidest goddamn way to spend a Friday night and his dad can just fuck right off and he's just going to drink as much of Angie's beer as possible, Joey punches him in the shoulder. "Your turn."

Ugh.

He is definitely going to need _at least_ two more beers. The top of the can cracks and fizzles, beer spilling down his wrist. He licks a line from his forearm to his fingertips, desperately trying to sop up as much as alcohol as possible.

She closes her bedroom door behind him quietly, the room dark except for a small night light and the glow of her alarm clock. The smell. Fuck. It is like someone is holding his head down in a vat of dollar-store vanilla body spray and Joey's ballsweat. He tips the rest of the beer back in one steady chug, as if it is going to help.

Her hand pats the bed beside her. "Wanna get it in?"

Mickey inhales sharply, shaking his head ever so slightly. "Uh… not really though."

She takes the other beer from him and lets out a little laugh. "Joey drag you here?"

He shrugs in the dark. "I guess." She doesn't say anything for a minute and he feels like the world's biggest asshole. Just awkward and weird and like he might punch something or yell "fuck off!" because he didn't even want to be here in the first place.

"We can just chill until he passes out, then. Doesn't usually take long." She taps the top of the can lightly, illuminated by the glow of 9:53 on the clock. In one smooth motion her teeth pull the tab up, it punctures the can, she pushes the tab flat with her tongue and catches each drop of fizz in her mouth before it can roll down her arms.

He lets out a big breath that he didn't even realize he'd been holding in. "Hah, I know, right? He's a lazy motherfucker." Her bed creaks as he sits next to her and she nudges the cold can back to his hands. "This whole place smells like Joey's asscrack now, Christ." He can feel the corners of her mouth turning up at him in the dark as the rest of the alcohol sloshes down his throat, landing in a warm pile somewhere below his ribs. "How do you even fucking stand it?"

"Eh, I've been with worse."

An awkward silence hangs between them, his body finally cutting through it as he leans over her to put the empty cans on her bedside table. She catches him on the way back across, just as his ass is about to settle back in to the mattress. The kiss feels wet with beer and sticky with lip gloss, and it is not at all like the hungry, slobbering kisses on those soap operas Mandy is always fucking watching. In elementary school he had tackled a few girls on the playground and kissed them until they gagged, but no girl had ever willingly kissed him – or probably any of the Milkoviches, to be honest.

Angie's hand pats him on the leg, and he senses her body shift, like she might stand up. His arms lunge out in the darkness, on their own accord - just grabbing at whatever they can get a hold on. A flash of relief crosses his mind when he realizes he has a hold of her shoulders and didn't just honk a tit or something. Before his brain can consider what is going to happen next or further congratulate him on not acting like a weird rookie, his mouth is kissing her back.

They fumble in the dark for a long time, maybe it's only five minutes. Seems like a year, though. Angie sucks a necklace of hickeys around his collar and slides her hands all over him, but he still struggles to get hard. Mickey has never apologized to anyone in his life, usually doesn't see the point and when he does his mouth just won't form the words. This is one of those rare times. He wants to say he's sorry and he doesn't know why.

"Some guys don't know what to do with a big girl." She whispers. "Aren't used to all the awesome cushion." His eyes finally focus enough that he can see her eyes smiling back at him. "But this always works." Her face quickly vanishes from his view and she doesn't waste any time by planting romantic kisses down his body on her journey south, like they do in the movies.

But she is right. It works.

They have the condom situated and Mickey is less than 60 seconds in to losing his virginity when Joey pounds on the door so hard that they both sit straight up. "Did you two assfaces fall asleep in there?"

"Fuck off!" Mickey shouts over the steady thrum of Joey's fists.

"I brought you here to get fucked. If you're done then it's my fucking turn again!"

Angie hops up and eases the door open a crack. "We're _NOT_ done, you fuckhead. Your brother lasts longer than two pumps, unlike you. Feel free to fuck off if you don't want to wait."


	3. Chapter 3 - Battery Acid

Mickey's drool is like fucking battery acid, and the first time he falls asleep at Angie's house it ruins her favorite satin pillowcase. No joke. She never comes out and says anything, just examines it for a moment and mouths "what...the...fuck" into the space between her eyes and the pillow. It really defies chemistry. Mickey scoffs a little at the scene, pulls his boots on hastily, and never apologizes.

Two days later, a new set, a _nicer_ set, of satin pillowcases appears on her porch. They are wrapped in a plastic bag from Bravo Food & Liquor and obviously freshly lifted from a fancy department store. It is maybe one of the most endearing things another person has ever done for Angie, definitely in the top 5, but she still quietly changes her pillowcases to the crappy cotton ones when it looks like Mickey is going to pass out in her bed.


	4. Chapter 4 - MILF

The knocks come softly but persistently. At midnight on a Wednesday it is obviously a Milkovich, and neither Joey nor Iggy knock so politely.

She scrambles to find a robe. "Hold on a sec, Mickey!"

The snow is coming down in fat, white chunks that cling greedily to his black hair and thin hoodie. They don't bother with greetings, his father's name just comes tumbling like a curse from his lips. Somehow that says enough.

Mickey has this weird way of asking with every part of his body except his voice and sometimes it's amusing but mostly it's just sad. Like whatever goes on in his house has taught him a secret code that prevents him from ever just saying what he needs, even when he is safe enough to do so. This time he thumbs at his lip and uses his raised eyebrows to ask "Is it alright if I come in?". Angie opens the door wider and moves to let him past. He shakes the snow from his hair, huffs out a breath, hugs his chest slightly – asking if he can crash for the night, too.

His eyelids seem heavy but his eyes are still bright, like he's not quite ready to sleep, so she clicks on the TV and sits down on the couch. He looks a little stunned for a minute, but peels off the wet hoodie all the same. When he stretches legs the length of the couch, over Angie's lap and the blanket she has used to cover herself up, his mouth also stretches into a grin. He's freezing but he's not about to curl up under a blanket like a little bitch, so he just puts his feet pretty much right under Angie's nose, knowing she hates it.

"Do you seriously run through dog shit all day? I don't know how anyone's feet can smell so fucking terrible." She shakes her head and wraps the blanket around them to cover the stench, pushing some of it up toward his legs and waist in the process. He pulls a hard scoff in attempt to hide the fact that he is, indeed, snuggling himself in. She lets him think she isn't on to his little game and starts flipping through the channels.

They've made it through all of the shitty late-night talk shows, an infomercial for Japanese steak knives, and a family-sized can of spaghettios, when the sound of a key in the door makes him jump, entire body alert. His eyes scan the kitchen door for a quick escape but Angie hovers her hand over his. "It's cool."

Mickey's entire body stays tense, twitching, as Angie's mom stomps the snow off her boots and takes in the sight of them.

Angie lifts an eyebrow. "Flight cancelled?"

"Yep, snow doesn't seem to be letting up."

Angie nods and turns her attention back to the TV. "This is Mickey." His eyes shift around uncomfortably, silently telling Angie to not add "Milkovich" to the introduction. She doesn't.

"Hi Mickey." Her mom smiles as she walks past them toward the kitchen. "You kids want some cocoa?"

Mickey's body sags into the couch, like he's never been so relieved in his life, and he catches the look Angie is giving him. She's amused, and a little surprised, to see him so nervous about someone's _mother_. "Damn," he whispers as he sits up, "I dig the flight attendant uniform." Angie purses her lips and lowers her eyes when he hisses "MIIILLLFFF."

His legs hit the floor with a thud when she shoves them off her and heads into the kitchen. A moment later he follows, carrying the bowls that had held their spaghettio's. His blue eyes sparkle a little in her mother's direction as he goes straight to the sink and begins to rinse them out. Angie swallows a laugh. Mickey is actually pretty mindful of her shit – always cleans up after himself and exercises restraint when he shows up so mad that he wants to punch a hole in a wall. It's an amusing contrast to his dedication for neighborhood property damage, sure, but watching him turn on the charm for her mother is a side she's never seen. His default setting with strangers, especially those over 35, is a hard "fuck you". Now he's batting his fucking eyelashes and saying "Thank you, Mrs. Szago" as she hands him a cup of hot chocolate. Her mom complains about work and makes some smalltalk while he takes little slurps from the mug, looking like he actually gives two shits about what she's saying.

"You know," Angie whispers when her mom finally goes in the living room, "if you are going to continue to eyefuck my mother, I'm ok with you sleeping outside in the snow tonight."

"Oh I'm going to be doing more than _eye_fucking her pretty soon…" Mickey thrusts his hips toward the cabinets and slaps his hand on the countertop, just for good measure.

He freezes when her mother reappears and grabs a bag of pretzels from the small pantry. "You guys want me to put a movie on?"

"Nope." Angie grabs a fistful of Mickey's shirt and shuffles him past her. "We were just heading upstairs."

Mickey shoots one last coy glance her mother's way. "Alright, just keep it down." She winks and Angie briefly considers slapping both of them. Instead she mumbles a string of obscenities while pushing Mickey along.

When they reach the steps he lowers his voice, both down an octave and into a whisper, "You know, young lady, when I'm your step-father that kind of language won't be tolerated. You'll be grounded immediately."

"Fucking move your ass, Mickey, I swear to god." She gives him one final shove into her bedroom and shuts the door quickly behind them. He immediately breaks into a fit of fucking giggles and falls onto her bed. She won't give him the satisfaction of sharing a laugh.

They lay shoulder to shoulder in Angie's queen-sized bed, listening to the snow plow scraping the streets outside.

"Wanna blow me?"

She kicks him under the covers. "Blow yourself."

"Can't reach. I've tried."

"Of course you have."

The snow plow is finally too far down the street to be heard and a calm silence hangs over the whole house.

"That shit I said earlier about being your step-dad…"

"It's fine, Mickey."

"Yeah whatever. It's just-"

"It's really ok."

"I forget that not everyone's dad is such a shithead as mine."

Angie is quiet for a beat, and then finally says, "Was."

"Huh?"

"Was. He isn't _such a shithead_, he _isn't _anything. I dunno, maybe he _was_ a shithead. It's been ten years, I don't even remember him."

"Oh." Mickey bites his lip, and it's too dark in the room for her to see it but he twists his face into an expression that says he's sorry, and asks for a little forgiveness.

Angie _can't_ see him, isn't even looking anywhere but straight up at the ceiling, but she can sense what he's getting at.

"Mickey?"

"What?"

"Blow me."


	5. Chapter 5 - Liking What You Like

It sure as shit doesn't happen the first time she blows him. Not even the second. It is probably more like the fifth or sixth time - his hips heaving up and down, a swear word or two on his lips, body teetering on the edge of orgasm - when she takes her slick hand from him and slips one finger inside.

In.

His.

Fucking.

Ass.

It feels like his brains are going to splatter all over the walls of her bedroom. Instead he just pulls out of Angie's mouth and splatters himself all over his hands.

A couple minutes tick by before he can push words past the heavy breaths still bursting from his lungs. Angie moves her hands away from him and pulls a pack of smokes from the table, all in one motion.

He sits up to look at her still kneeling on the floor. "What the fuck was that?"

"What?" The word comes out a little garbled as she balances a cigarette between her lips, the flame from the lighter momentarily illuminating her face in the dim room.

He curls all but one finger into a fist and gestures impatiently, finger-fucking the air between them. "_That_."

Angie laughs and a puff of smoke comes out with it. She doesn't answer him, just turns and leans her back against the bed, next to Mickey's dangling legs. "I ain't no fucking faggot, Angie."

Her green eyes roll as she faces him. "Most guys like it, at least the ones I've been with anyway."

"Which is half of the fucking Southside." He nudges her arm with his foot.

"_Well,_ you seemed to like it, too." She raises her eyebrows and places the cigarette back between her smiling lips. Mickey is not smiling.

"I'm not some _bitch_, Angie." He is serious, the most serious she has ever seen him and she has seen him hold a knife to a kid's neck over a drug debt.

She inhales and then unfurls another puff of smoke. "Liking what you like don't make you a bitch, Mickey." He grabs the cigarette away from her and just takes a deep drag, because for maybe the first time in his life, he is speechless.


	6. Chapter 6 - FUCK U-UP

Mickey's knuckles look like two latex gloves filled with water, just swollen to shit. He's really stoned, too, not the worst she's ever seen him but more than halfway there. Before Angie can tease "Jesus, did you kill the guy?" her mother opens the door even wider and coos "Mickey, baby, let me get some ice for those paws." The only time Angie ever sees Mickey flush with embarrassment is when her mom goes to apply the ice packs and sees "FUCK U-UP" freshly poked into his skin.


	7. Chapter 7 - Kash & Grab

He shoves the box of junk food into her arms like it isn't midnight on a weekday in November, like this is the most natural thing in the world. For him, she guesses, it is.

"Kash and Grab again?"

He shrugs and rips into the box of snack cakes.

"The name of the store kind of implies that money is supposed to be involved."

"If I wanted a fucking lecture, I'd go find Mandy." There is chocolate cake stuck to his mouth and if he's trying to be menacing he's failing miserably, but, okay. Noted.

He kicks off his boots and stretches his legs out on to the coffee table, chocolate crumbs falling everywhere in the process. Angie cracks open a can of Pringles and roots her hand around in the box blindly, finally stopping dead.

"What?"

"You always forget the dip."


	8. Chapter 8 - Open Up

He is seeping vitriol and motoroil from every pore, the bruise blooming on the left side of his face is as dark as his mood.

Angie rubs her eyes as he follows her into the kitchen.

"You look like shit."

He spits a mouthful of blood into the sink. "You too."

"Did you lose a tooth?"

"At least one." He thumbs around in the back of his mouth and blood trickles down his wrist. "Won't stop bleeding." It normally takes a few minutes of persuasion for him to let Angie examine him, as if that isn't why he shows up at her house after a beating anyway, but this time he complies immediately. He's missing one tooth in the back and another one is cracked in half, as best as Angie can tell with all the blood in her way. She tosses him an ice pack from the freezer, thinking that she should have bought stock in the things as soon as Mickey Milkovich started hanging around.

"Do you have any coke on you?"

"Is this really the fucking time to start hitting the hard stuff Angie?" He spits out another glob of blood and holds the ice to his face.

She fishes a tampon out of her purse. "It's to stop the bleeding, you asshole. My uncle is a paramedic and sometimes they use it for nosebleeds."

She shoves a small glass bowl at him and he taps a small bit of cocaine into it, using his shoulder to hold the ice in place and eying her suspiciously the entire time. His ability to multi-task is actually kind of impressive.

"If this doesn't work, I'm charging you."

"If this doesn't work, you should probably go to the hospital." Like that's ever going to happen.

She adds a few tablespoons of water to the bowl and swishes the tampon around in the mixture.

"Open up."


	9. Chapter 9 - New Season

They aren't visible until she sits down, her skirt riding up just enough to reveal bruises that start at mid-thigh and match the dark purple paint of her bedroom walls. "The fuck happened to you?" He gestures with his left hand, joint perched between his fingers.

Angie shrugs and takes the joint from him. "The Lawrence kid got a little rough."

"I'll fucking say." His voice is barely above a whisper as he cocks his head just a little to see how far up the bruises go. "Which one?"

She pulls a face that somehow looks just like Mandy's what-the-fuck-are-you-talking-about?-expression, though their features couldn't have been less alike.

"Which Lawrence kid? There's like fucking eight of those douchebags."

She takes a hit and holds her breath in, steady. "Shawn, the oldest one."

Mickey bites his lip and lets his eyes wander around the room. "Glad it wasn't one of my goddamn brothers."

"Please. Joey is the only one who comes around anymore and he's usually too stoned to even get it up-"

"Jesus fuck, Angie!" His hands cover his ears. She laughs, because if there's one thing that is always entertaining about Mickey, it's watching him throw a goddamn hissy fit. "I don't want to hear that shit. The fuck is wrong with you?"

Still grinning, she takes another hit.

"Gimme that." He wrestles the joint from her hand and they both get a little burned in the process. "I'm going to need it to forget the image you just put in my fucking head."

* * *

She doesn't see Mickey for a while, two weeks, maybe three – enough time for the humid summer days to surrender to cool Autumn breezes. It's not unusual for him to disappear now and then. Sometimes he is at her house every day, like he's hiding out from the cops, or something worse. Sometimes an entire season passes before he starts coming back around. There doesn't seem to be a pattern to it, and she doesn't press him for information. Occasionally he rants about some fucker who owes him money, or his shitbag family, or some asshole who looked at him funny in the store and, you know, he has half a mind to bash their fucking face in if it didn't mean going back to Juvie. She normally leaves it at that, and under other circumstances, she probably would have let him keep walking when she sees him pass her house on a Saturday afternoon. His head is down but she sees that his stubble has exploded into a full blown beard. A lot of the swagger is missing from his step, too. Angie knows better than most people that you don't fuck with a wounded dog, but she chances it this time.

"Yo Milkovich!" He jumps, startled, fists clenching out of habit.

"Oh, hey Ang." His shoulders relax slightly as he leans himself forward on the fence.

"You hear about Shawn?" He chews on the inside of his cheek and flicks his eyes upward, pretending to run through all the good neighborhood stories he'd heard lately. Finally he shakes his head "no". "Someone went after him with a crowbar. Mugging, I guess."

"Yeah? Bad?"

Angie shrugs and makes her way down the steps. "Bad enough to detach a retina or some shit. His brother says he'll be blind in that eye for life."

He laughs, showing Angie that the Mickey she knows is still in there. "Eye for an eye, right? Pretty sure that fuckhead had something coming to him."

"Wanna come in? Get wasted?"

"Can't. Meeting someone."

"Alright, cool." She passes him a knowing smile and he accepts it, but doesn't smile back. "See ya around then, Mickey." He nods, turning to leave, as her fingers curl around his sleeve at the last second. "Thanks."


	10. Chapter 10 - Arts & Crafts Shit

Mickey perches himself on the edge of her bed, cigarette in one hand and tallboy in the other, totally engrossed in the episode of Judge Judy playing on Angie's small TV. "These fuckers are so stupid. She's about to lose her shit… oh, man, fuck. He's done it now."

A plastic bag lands next to him on the bed. "Got something there you might like."

He rolls his eyes. Unless Ian's hard dick is in there, what he would like most in this moment is to watch Judge Judy rip this idiot a new one.

When he doesn't move towards the bag, Angie opens it to reveal a small collection of brand new sex toys – a couple vibrators, a dildo, and something that looks like a necklace made by a brain damaged child – a bunch of balls on a string.

The show cuts to commercial and the vibrators pique his interest, though he digs deep for his most unimpressed sneer. "What the fuck is this?" He picks up the string of balls, flips them over a couple times, and tosses them back on the bed.

"Ben Wa beads."

"Some arts and crafts shit?" He takes a drag from his cigarette.

"No, you asshole. It's a sex thing. You put 'em in there and take 'em out real slow. It's supposed to feel awesome."

He chokes on his laugh and the smoke blows from his nose. "You want me to shove those up your cunt? Because that doesn't sound like a fun time for me…"

"Shit, no." She picks them up and offers them back to him. "They're for you." His body recoils involuntarily. Letting Angie put a finger, or two, in his ass during a blowjob was one thing. Banging dudes in Juvie was a different thing. And fucking Ian was something else. But this was a thing separate from any of those things. Like, another thing fucking entirely. "Look, the dude at the sex store recommended them. Said they were a lot of fun."

"Which dude?"

"You know which one."

"Gay dude?"

"Flaming."

"Whatever." He sets the beer down but doesn't touch the beads, instead he just side-eyes Angie, and the toys, until the commercial is over. Two more minutes pass before he admits, "I've seen this episode of Judge Judy three times already."

The whole thing is fucking strange. They haven't messed around in a while, a long while, and even though Angie wasn't shy about her fervor for sex toys, that was one bridge he had not been eager to cross. With her anyway. Now his ass is lubed up like a fucking slip & slide and he is on the verge of hyperventilating.

"Sure you want to do this?"

"Goddammit Angie, just fucking hurry up before I lose my nerve." She draws her eyebrows together and tries not to laugh, gently slipping the first ball in.

"Is it less weird if I suck you off while we do this?"

"No." He takes a deep breath. "Yes. I don't fucking know. Maybe?" Angie moves one hand to hold his dick and then gently licks him. "Nope. Weirder. WEIRDER. Fucking Weirder for sure! I'll just…" She slips another ball in. "I'll fucking take care of the business in…" and then one more "in the front."

In the end, the gay sex store cashier was not wrong. Not wrong at all.

He rinses them off in the small bathroom adjoining Angie's room and shakes his head at his reflection in the mirror the entire time. "Fucking Mickey Milkovich taking Ben Wa beads up the goddamn ass."

"You wanna take 'em home?" Angie calls from her bedroom. "I figured if your dad finds them you can play it off like they're a weapon or some shit. Easier to explain than a vibrator."

Mickey laughs as he steps back in her room. She tosses him a beer and he catches it one-handed while the string of beads dangle from the other arm. "Ah, one for the road." He winks and slips both presents in a paper bag. "See ya Angie."

"Yeah." She smiles. "Happy birthday, Mickey."


	11. Chapter 11 - Make it Look Nice

She spots him from half a block away, dragging his leg and carrying an armful of gauze like he's a zombie nurse or some shit.

He hobbles right up to her porch but doesn't sit down like he normally would.

"I'm guessing that gauze has something to do with the fact that you're limping?"

He sighs. "Got shot."

"Again?"

"Yes. Fucking _again_."

"Where?"

"You gonna fuckin' dress my wounds or not, Angie?"

"Jesus, _where_?"

He laughs a little as he kicks his jeans and boxers to the floor, and then flops himself forward on the couch.

"Gonna go out on a limb and assume you did the dressing that's currently in place?" His ass cheeks are half taped together and part of the wound isn't even covered.

"It's a weird fucking angle, Angie. Why the fuck do you think I'm even here?"

"Don't you have anyone else to do this?" She pulls the old dressing off in one quick motion.

"JESUSFUCKINGSONOFAFUCKINGBITCHHHHHHH" The words come out in one terse string from between gritted teeth.

"Like Mandy? Can't she do this?" Angie opens the gauze packages and sprays them with antiseptic.

"You think I want my fucking sister poking around in my ass?"

"And it's okay for me to poke around in your ass?" She carefully lays the gauze onto the wound and he winces slightly at the burn.

"It wouldn't be the first time."

"Point taken." She starts to tape the dressing in place.

"Make it look nice."

"Why? You having company back here later?"

He turns his head to look at her but can only see part of her face from the corner of his eye. They both pause for a "fuck off", but it never comes. She wants to say "Have your boyfriend do your next dressing change" but instead she just slaps his other cheek. "All done!"


	12. Chapter 12 - A Collar on a Stray Dog

Angie laughs out loud when Joey tells her Mickey is getting married. Like, she fucking howls. Is it April Fool's Day? Is Joey even more stoned than usual?

"To some Russian whore."

What.

"Guess she's knocked up."

_What?_

"And it's Mickey's? The kid?"

"How the fuck should I know? My dad seems to think it is, though."

"Hence the wedding." She stares straight ahead, ignoring Joey as he tries to hand off the beer he's holding.

"Yeah. You fucking jealous or something?"

She tries to glare or laugh or punch him, anything, but she can't move. All the blood drains from her face and pools heavily in her chest.

* * *

She doesn't think he'll actually go through with it, still maintains it's some sick fucking joke up until the very minute she sees him standing there in that goddamn tuxedo. He keeps pulling at his collar like a fucking dog, somehow it's both the saddest and most infuriating thing she's ever witnessed. He's had a lot of half-baked plans and bad decisions in the years she's known him, but the desire to shake his fucking shoulders and scream at him has never been so real.

Ian Gallagher is making a fucking mess of himself at the bar, just chugging vodka and falling off the barstool and fuming so hard that all of his freckles are turning to tiny purple bruises. She looks around weakly, hoping to meet the eyes of someone else who is seeing this. Joey? Mandy? Isn't someone going to fucking help this kid? Mickey's eyes are cloudy, so fucking dark that they look more black than blue, and he takes his bride's hand limply. Angie's eyes lock on to his for one glance but then he pulls them away, just looks straight ahead. He doesn't even chance a look at the Gallagher boy, and she wants to think that's pretty fucking cowardly, but really, she doesn't have any idea. There are a lot of things she could call Mickey – stubborn, short-sighted, proud to a fault – but never fucking cowardly. Maybe if she had pushed Mickey to say what was really eating at him all this time - maybe then this shitshow wouldn't be unfolding in front of her. In the end that's probably not true.

The room is getting louder with bridesmaids squealing and Mickey's dad hooting and hollering. She feels drunk even though she hasn't had a drop of alcohol and ducks out a side door. It takes a moment for her body to register that the day has gone dark, that night time has come. It's cold but she doesn't shiver until she feels someone watching her.

Mickey blinks in the glow of the streetlight and extends his cigarette out to her.

"You look even less thrilled than I am to be here."

He shrugs. "Well you can fucking leave any time you want."

The words come out burning hot bile, classic Mickey telling her to fuck off. His wedding ring glints in the light and Angie can't help but draw in a hard breath. When she hands the cigarette back to him she sees that his eyes are still on her, staring, asking - as close as a Milkovich can get to begging. All he needs are two seconds of understanding from someone who has never judged him, never asked questions. And she gets it, he's right. She can leave, walk away to a life that will be as much her own choosing as a poor kid from the Southside of Chicago can possibly have. It's a privilege not everyone has.


	13. Chapter 13

She's never run a bath for him. This is not, like, a thing they do. But now her hand is sloshing around under the tap, trying to get the temperature right. When the water is warm enough to make her have to piss as it runs over her fingers, but not scalding, she lets it go. Her legs kick gently against the side of the tub and the teal-handled razor catches her eye. The thought turns over in her head for a moment, and she slips it into her pocket. Mickey has never talked about suicide. Ever. Homicide, yeah, of course. Sometimes plotting to kill someone is every other word out of his mouth, and sometimes he isn't even joking. But kill himself? No. And if he really wanted to off himself, the Milkovich house is like a fucking arsenal. She's positive there are drugs there, too - much easier ways than bleeding himself out with a ladies razor in her bathtub. It's stupid, but she keeps it in her pocket anyway. He's shown up on her doorstep at midnight countless times in the last few years, but never like this.

He's filthier than usual, which is hard to believe possible, and his face is swollen in a way that looks like it has been hit with something other than a blunt object. His eyes are just blank – no anger, no sarcasm, nothing. So she holds her tongue when she would normally tell him he smells like shit. And she doesn't make him talk about what's wrong. And she doesn't try to rub his back and fucking tell him to let it all out. She's had a whole list of questions for him since the wedding, but she doesn't ask a single one. She just gives him a beer, accepts his answer when he tells her he isn't hungry, and runs him a bath.

If he thinks this is just as weird as she does, he doesn't let on - just nods and shuts the bathroom door behind him. It occurs to her that she should wash his clothes, they honestly look like he has been sleeping in a pile of dirt and pigeon shit for a week – maybe he has.

She listens for him to pull the shower curtain back and slip himself into the water, then she waits a few more minutes just… because… this _is _fucking weird. And if she's going to wash his clothes, then what the fuck is he going to wear in the mean time?

In her mother's room, buried in the closet three boxes deep, are a couple totes of her father's old things. She finds a t-shirt but the only pair of pants are his old Army dungarees. There is a flash-memory of Mickey, Mandy and Ian Gallagher together, walking like a bunch of tough little shits, smiling and trading jabs. Ian is wearing the same style of camo pants. She tucks them away and roots around in another box. A pair of black gym shorts will have to do.

She listens again at the bathroom door. It's eerily quiet, she doesn't know what she expects to hear. "Mickey?" When there isn't any answer she cracks open the door. "Mickey?" The quiet makes her heart speed up a bit. She pushes the door open the rest of the way and finally hears him kick the water around a little. Her heart stills. "I'm going to toss your clothes in the washer. I have a t-shirt and shorts you can put on until your stuff is dry."

She exchanges them quickly, like she is intruding on something private and she should avert her eyes. The curtain is pulled closed and it's not like she hasn't seen him naked before. That's not it.

After she gets the washer started she stands by the bathroom door for a third time, just listening. He says her name quietly, like he knows she's been standing there, and it makes her jumps out of her skin.

"Yeah?" She inches the door open again.

"You have a smoke?"

She fishes the mostly full pack out of her pocket and lights one, taking a hard breath in before handing it off to the pale hand that reaches around the shower curtain. In the shitty fluorescent lighting of the tiny bathroom she notices that he's not wearing his wedding band.

He inhales, exhales, inhales again, and once she is satisfied with the fact that, okay, he's still breathing, she finally moves to leave.

His arm reaches back around the curtain, offering the cigarette to her. "You don't have to go". His voice cracks with the words as if they are painful, familiar. Maybe he isn't even talking to her, just saying what he should have said to someone else, but she sits down and rests her back against the tub anyway. They pass cigarette after cigarette back and forth, in total silence, until the pack is gone.

It's not unusual for Mickey to sleep in her bed. Maybe pass out is a more appropriate term. They don't have sleepovers, it's just that sometimes his dad would kick him out or he would drink too much or get too high and then it would be morning and there's drool everywhere and the whole place smells like farts. So he has slept over before, but they don't have sleepovers.

He always falls asleep first and usually sleeps like a rock, but tonight he doesn't. Mickey tosses and wraps himself up in a blanket burrito and soaks the sheets with his sweat and mumbles incoherently. Angie listens intently but can't make out a single phrase. It's just chattering teeth and long vowels hanging haphazardly off his tongue. Just non-sense, until it isn't - until he finally says exactly what he needs. No sarcasm, no quirk of the eyebrows, just says one thing as clear as he's probably ever said anything in his life.

One name.

He always falls asleep first. That's only one of the secrets she's kept about Mickey Milkovich over the years. He sleeps like a rock. He blinded someone for life because they didn't take no for an answer. He acts like an innocent schoolboy around her mother. He's gay. He's in love with Ian Gallagher.


End file.
